bona fide, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bona fide n.

[Lat. bona fide, in good faith; the act was amended to restrict the drinking to two hours after closing time (10 p.m.) and three miles beyond the city limits; it was abolished on 4 July 1960]

(Irish / Scots)

1. a genuine traveller, as defined by the WWI Defence of the Realm Act, which allowed anyone who had genuinely travelled three miles to be served drink at any hour of the day or night .

1868		Greenock Teleg. 24 July 3/1: William Carr [...] who is at a loss for a designationfor six days in the week [...] on the Sunday [...] walks to Port-Glasgow and there dubs himself a bona fide traveller.
1889		Gloucester Citizen 6 June 3/3: In order to make it more successful the distance limit in relation to the bona fide traveller should be increased from three miles to twelve.
1898		Dundee Eve. Teleg. 14 Feb. 3/4: Our old friend the bona fide traveller who always blocks the way upon any consideration of Sunday closing.
1975		J. Ryan Remembering How We Stood 25: ‘Weez is bonafeeds.’ [...] ‘Weez is travellers. Really, weez is’ [...] Under the new dispensation, the bona fide traveller could drink for one hour after the legal closing time.

2. one who enjoyed such extended drinking time; thus do the bona fide, to travel (a given distance) in order to indulge in after-hours drinking.

1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Sept. 4/6: Perth’s most witty bung goes the whole hog in compelling thirsty travellers to commit wholesale perjury when he admits them to his pub on the bona fide racket upon the Sabbath.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 10 Sept. 4/6: Bung (all seriousness): ’Are you a bona fide traveller? [...] (winking at the other bona fide).
1916		Sun. Times (Perth) 24 Dec. 2s/3: Bored old bona-fides in the barroom underneath.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 403: All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides.
c.1940–5		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Best of Myles (1968) 315: In plain English, this means, ‘Bona fides are the standby of the State’.
1968		Meanjin Quarterly (Melbourne) Sept. 310: Not one of the company – and least of all Brendan [Behan] [...] wanted the night to end so soon. ‘Let’s do the bona fide?’ he suggested .
1985		M. Johnston Around the Banks of Pimlico 102: Strange things were always happening to him and Uncle Christy on their many journeys out to ‘do the bona fide’ after the city pubs had closed .